


and i will smile (i will smile, i will smile, i will smile)

by mischief7manager



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Nightmares, Other, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9593801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischief7manager/pseuds/mischief7manager
Summary: "Pike’s not sure when, exactly, the nightmares started.Well, not started, exactly. She’s had nightmares pretty much as long as she can remember, certainly as long as she’s been an adventurer. Everyone has nightmares once in awhile, and the kind of things Pike’s seen lend themselves well to haunting her dreams, but for the most part, they’ve been infrequent visitors to Pike’s sleeping mind.Here lately, though, they’ve started coming more often. And none of her usual tricks can make them stop. "Pike takes care of everyone in the group. It's about time someone took care of her.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scarletclarinet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletclarinet/gifts).



> This was written for scarletclarinet as a charity commission. The prompt was sapphic hurt/comfort, poly!ship preferred, and I hope this fills it satisfactorily.
> 
> Set at some ambiguous point after episode 84. Title from "Tough Guy" by Cyberbully Mom Club, which is one of the most Pike "you just need to turn that frown upside down" Trickfoot songs I have ever heard.

Pike’s not sure when, exactly, the nightmares started.

Well, not started, exactly. She’s had nightmares pretty much as long as she can remember, certainly as long as she’s been an adventurer. Everyone has nightmares once in awhile, and the kind of things Pike’s seen lend themselves well to haunting her dreams, but for the most part, they’ve been infrequent visitors to Pike’s sleeping mind.

Here lately, though, they’ve started coming more often. And none of her usual tricks can make them stop.

She tries going to bed at different hours. She tries eating her favorite foods before she goes to bed. She tries not eating anything for hours before she goes to bed. She tries potions, tonics, meditation, drinking first one, then two, then three pints of ale. Nothing keeps the nightmares away.

They started predictably, the same images that plagued her sleep as a child: she’d be running, running down a long corridor, trying to get to a door on the other end, but she was being chased by something behind her, and no matter how fast she ran, she never reached the door, and she never escaped her pursuer. Those dreams lasted for a few months, but now, it seems, her subconscious has decided to get creative.

She sees the bodies, of course. This part is drawn from her true memory, so it’s not especially surprising when she sees Grog sprawled out on the floor of K’Varn’s fortress or facedown in the snow, Scanlan frozen solid or beaten bloody, Vex unmoving in the red heat of Thordak’s lair, Percy sliced open and left to bleed out on the cold stone. It’s not even surprising when she sees Vex in a heap on the ground in the sunken tomb, Percy lifeless and riddled with bullets. She knows what happened, even if she wasn’t there to see it. Even if she wasn’t there to stop it. If that was the worst her dreams could throw at her, she’d probably be okay.

Except here lately, the bodies have started talking.

Grog’s the first. “Help me,” he says, his lifeless eyes lolling in his face as he searches for her, pulling himself through the snow with broken, bloodied limbs. “Where are you, buddy? Help me, please…”

“You didn’t save me.” Now it’s Vex, dark energy swirling around her body, staring up at her with hatred burning in her gaze. “Where were you? Why weren’t you here? You could have saved me. You could have _saved me!”_

“Not enough,” says Percy, blood trickling from the holes in his chest, face empty and expressionless. “When will you learn? Whatever you give, it’s still not enough.”

“You failed.” Scanlan, cold. So, so cold. “You had one job, and you failed. You failed, you failed, _you failed-_ ”

Pike gives up on sleeping easy after that.

 

* * *

 

It all comes to a head one night in Greyskull Keep.

They’ve been doing… whatever it is they’re doing, all of them together, for a while now. As Scanlan put it, they’ve all got a lot of love to go around, so why limit themselves to only sharing it with certain people? It’s been wonderful, and frightening, and complicated, sorting out wants and needs and boundaries among seven different people, but now that the Conclave’s taken care of and they’ve had some time to breathe, they’ve settled into something resembling a routine. And part of that routine, a part that Pike especially likes, is regularly scheduled girls’ nights.

Pike loves her boys, and Vex and Keyleth do too, but it’s so nice to have it just be the three of them every once in awhile. It’s a chance to relax and catch up, gossip and chat about nothing in particular, cuddle or play with each other’s hair. With Keyleth in the mix, there’s nothing sexual to any of it, just the pleasure of each other’s company, the joy that being close with people they love provides.

If she’s being honest with herself, Pike needs this girls’ night badly. She hasn’t slept more than the bare minimum required each night for the past few weeks, and what sleep she’s gotten has been fitful and uneasy. Even when she’s awake, she can’t settle, some part of her always anticipating the nightmares to come.

She guesses the others have noticed, because Vex and Keyleth seem extra focused on her tonight. She’s barely set foot in Vex’s chambers before Keyleth’s taken her hand and pulled her to the bed. (The bed’s the reason they always meet in Vex’s quarters. Their party treasurer keeps her gold close, but she’s got a soft spot for creature comforts, and her enormous, stupid comfy bed was one of the first purchases made with their profits from the dragons’ hoards.)

“C’mere,” Keyleth says, tugging on Pike’s hand. Pike follows as Keyleth settles against the headboard, leading Pike into the circle of her arms. She kisses Pike, soft and sweet, then guides her until she’s sitting, her back against Keyleth’s chest.

Vex kneels on the bed in front of them and takes Pike’s face in her hands. “Hello, darling.” She smiles and kisses Pike, too, a little more forcefully, but still tender enough to make Pike’s chest ache. “This alright?” she asks when she pulls away.

Pike nods. “This is perfect,” she says, and Vex’s answering smile is enough to chase any thoughts of nightmares away.

The evening goes on like that, gentle kisses and soft voices. After a while, Pike finds herself lying with her head in Vex’s lap, Keyleth curled up next to her, Vex’s fingers tracing softly through her hair. The other two are talking about something, but Pike can’t find the energy to listen hard enough to find out what, and almost before she realizes what’s happened, she’s drifted off.

She should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.

The dream starts the same as the others. Bodies and voices, desperate and uncaring. Always looking for her, calling out to her. Always a reminder of what she’s failed to do. What she should have done.

This time, though, the nightmare shifts. She’s back in the familiar long corridor, the one that’s haunted her for years. But there’s nothing chasing her this time, and there’s no door on the other end. Instead, it opens out into an enormous space, and as she begins to move towards it, she realizes it’s a battlefield.

She can’t see what it is her friends are fighting. In the way of dreams, that part doesn’t seem to matter. All that matters is that they’re losing. She starts to walk, then to run, toward them, but she doesn’t get any closer, and all she can do is watch as they fall, one by one. Grog, his chest caved in by a massive blow, sinking to his knees as the breath leaves him. Vax, struck from the sky, shedding black feathers as he plummets to the earth. Keyleth, flames licking up her body, a twisted mirror of her elemental form, her skin and hair blackening and peeling as they burn. Percy, sliced open again, weapon falling from his limp hand as his life’s blood spills across the ground. Vex, reaching for another arrow, only to be stopped by a blast of arcane power, collapsing in a pile like puppet with its strings cut. Trinket, _Trinket_ , roaring defiance, cut down as he tries to guard his master’s body. Scanlan, smile still on his lips as he falls.

She sees them, and she’s running, and she’s screaming, but they still die, she watches them die, there’s nothing she can do but watch, they’re dying in front of her and she can’t, she doesn’t, it’s _her fault_ -

“Pike!”

Pike screams herself awake.

“Pike, it’s okay-” “What in the nine hells-” “Is she-” “Pike, we’re here, it’s alright, we’re here-”

Vex and Keyleth’s worried voices overlap in a cacophony of anxiety, and for a second Pike can’t breathe with the weight of it. “Don’t-” she says, but her throat closes before she can finish the sentence, and then the only thought she has is that she can’t breathe. She can’t breathe, she’s awake but she can’t breathe, there are tears coursing down her face, but she can’t _breathe_ -

“Pike.” That’s Keyleth, her voice steady at last, and it’s enough that Pike can finally open her eyes. She’s on Vex’s lap, curled in around herself like she’s taken a blow to the stomach, and Keyleth’s sitting next to them, one hand on Pike’s trembling shoulder. Keyleth’s eyes are wide with worry still, but her words are clear. “I’m gonna take some breaths, and I want you to try and breathe with me, okay?”

Pike gasps, her whole body shuddering. “I- I can’t-”

Keyleth grabs Pikes hand and places it on her chest, tiny gnome fingers splayed against Keyleth’s freckled collarbone where it peeks out from underneath her tunic. “It’s okay. Just do your best. Breathe.” And Keyleth breathes, exaggerated inhales and exhales, deep enough that her chest rises and falls under Pike’s hand like the tide.

It takes several minutes. Pike shakes against Vex’s chest, her body heaving with shallow gasps, but Keyleth is patient. She keeps Pike’s hand where it is, the skin-to-skin contact centering Pike and grounding her, until finally her breaths even out and her shudders slowly subside. “I’m sorry,” she says, when she can find the words. “I’m sorry.”

Keyleth frowns. “For what?”

Pike shakes her head. “You shouldn’t- you shouldn’t have to-” She draws in a deep breath and resists the urge to bury her face against Vex’s shoulder, to hide herself from them. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this. With me. I’m sorry.”

“Pike…” Keyleth sounds utterly shattered, and she looks up to Vex, expression pleading.

“Pike.” Vex lifts Pike up, gentle for all the firmness in her voice, shifts her until they’re face to face. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Pike shakes her head, but Vex speaks again before she can. “You _don’t have to apologize_.” She tucks a hand under Pike’s chin, lifts her face until their eyes meet. “I love you. Keyleth loves you. We all love you. And we love all of you, even the parts you’re scared for us to see.”

It’s too much, Pike thinks as the tears well up again. To be the focus of so much love, so much undeserved affection. “It’s my fault,” she says, voice cracking.

Keyleth sits up, frowning again. “What’s your fault?”

Pike drops her gaze. “All of it,” she says, the words pouring out of her, like once she’s started she couldn’t stop them if she tried. “I’m supposed to- to keep you safe, all of you, it’s my job, but I can’t- I can’t do it, and you keep getting hurt, and you keep _dying_ -”

“Hey.” Vex pulls her closer, the embrace slightly awkward since Pike’s still not looking at her. “You do keep us safe. You save us. You saved Scanlan, remember?”

She shakes her head. “If I’d done the revivify right the first time, I wouldn’t have had to.” Keyleth starts to say something in response to that, but Pike barrels on. “And I gave the necklace to Percy and he still- And Grog and Cravenedge, I should’ve known- And _you_ , Vex, I wasn’t even there when you- when you-”

 _“Pike.”_ That’s Keyleth, and Pike looks up to see there’s tears in her eyes now, and she brings her hand up to Pike's hand on her chest, pressing it against her heart. “How can you- That’s not your fault, none of that is your fault.”

“You’re doing your best, Pike.” Vex’s voice is soft, and Pike finally gives in and lets her head drop to rest right against Vex’s chest. “That’s all any of us are doing. That’s all any of us can do.”

Pike swallows. “Can you- Will you stay with me? Until I fall asleep again?”

She feels Vex’s lips press against the top of her head. “Of course, dear.”

Keyleth nods. “And we’ll be here when you wake up.”

Pike’s chest feels unusually tight. “Promise?”

Keyleth squeezes her hand. “Promise.”

Pike nods. “Okay,” she says. And finally, exhausted, she lets herself drift off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to commission your own fic from me, check out [this post](http://mischief7manager.tumblr.com/post/156547309777/i-dont-have-much-money-and-i-dont-usually-have) on my tumblr, or even if you don't, feel free to spread the word.


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